Few CDs scream summer to me the way most of the albums Dragon released in the 1980s do. I’d argue that no other band captured the overall atmosphere and spirit of summer in musical form the way Dragon did.

There are plenty of bands that wear their influences on their sleeves, to the point where their material could be mistaken for those who influenced them. Sometimes its an intentional homage, other times its accidental

Supertramp’s golden era is generally understood to have been between 1974-79, spanning Crime of the Century through Breakfast in America. Perhaps predictably, none of our selections come from that period.

It would be easy enough to fill this list with songs from Chicago’s turn-of-the-1990s slickster years. And just as easy to heap scorn on their post-Terry Kath slump in the late 1970s. Instead, we did both.